News! This blog now has a Twitter feed. You can follow it at Wargaming With Rampage, or @TomL40k. I don't really understand how Twitter works. But what this is designed to do is just provide quick snapshots of what's going on, what I'm painting up, individual tactical points as I realise them and then get overly excited, etc. Also, you will be kept in the loop as to which articles are in the pipeline and expected date of release, so make sure you follow that, as if no-one follows I will get lazy and not 'tweet'. But onto the meat of the post.
When I first built my Space Wolf army, it was on the back of the transfer between 5th and 6th edition, and was designed to be a 1,500pt project with 250pts of Thunderwolves on the side in case I needed to go higher. Things have changed a bit since then, with the Space Wolves more comfortably occuping the 1,750 - 1,850pt slot. With my Chaos on the go, and due to the nature of that list, the Wolves are the natural choice to bring back down to about the 1,500 mark again, not that I won't use them at higher points levels, but I'd like to be able to use them at lower ones too.
I played a couple of lower points value games with them on Thursday, the first at 1,650, against a Loganwing army, so Logan, Rune Priest, 2 small squads of Terminators, one in a Drop Pod, a big squad in a Land Raider with Logan, boom.I played this army a couple of weeks ago in the Relic, and lost that one due to a Land Raider with 1 Hull Point refusal to die. This time however, I was hoping for a different mission, and I got it, in the form of Kill Points.
Long time readers know that Kill Points is not one of my armies favourite missions, even with the blob, I still have a tonne of easy ones that my opponent can take from me. That said, the blob incarnation of this list is still undefeated in this mission, tournament or no. My opponent's army is also Terminator based, with very few Kill Points at all. Essentially the Space Wolves version of Draigowing.
However, despite this Kill Points is probably a better mission for me against this army than the Relic was. This is because if I want the Relic, I need to move into the centre of the board, my opponent can set up their Terminator squads around the Relic (he had First Blood in the last game), ready to multicharge anything that got close and rip it apart, or picking it up with Logan and walking into his Raider. This time, he had no Raider, and I had nothing to press forward to.
I could outshoot him, both the quality and quality of shots were weighted in my favour, even with his Melta squad. Therefore, he couldn't just sit back and try to pick off Kill Points (I'll go through my list in a second), he would have to come to me and try and win the game in a close combat war.
I seize the initiative, drop down with the Drop Pod, and although the Manticore fails miserably, the Melta in the Drop Pod takes out the Land Raider, 2-0 to me. He then takes out the Drop Pod and the Grey Hunters inside, but I was fine with that, even if they hadn't killed the Land Raider, as they'd have stalled his big Terminator squad, now he's coming in waves.
The First wave hits, 5 Melta-Terminators in a Drop Pod, kill some Guardsmen which I used to bubble wrap, the Guard blob wrecks that squad and the Drop Pod is exploded by Long Fangs, which he had tried to use as cover for his Second wave.
5 Terminators and a Rune Priest, who is sniped out by the Manticore, their squad is then torn apart by the blob. Now he has Logan's squad and the Iron Priest on Thunderwolf left. The latter charged the Long Fangs on the right, but is tied up before the Lone Wolf comes over there and deals with him. Logan's squad then charges the Guard blob, Logan takes a challenge from a sergeant, before a Lone Wolf comes in and severly wounds him, before the other one comes back across and finishes him off, whilst the Guard blob give the Terminators a good beating. Wolves and Guard victory via tabling Turn 5.
The second game was at 1,500pts, difficult with a Guard blob, on a 4x4ft table, difficult against, 'The Swarm' and army infamous inside the Oxford GW.
The opposing army had a tooled up Hive Tyrant, some Zoanthropes, some Hive Guard, some Tyrant Guard with the Hive Tyrant, 30 Hormagaunts, 30 Termagants, 3 Biovores, some Tyranid Warriors, some more Tyranid Warrior like things with Wings.
Anyway, we got the Relic, and he had about 100 scoring bodies.
I got the first turn, which pretty much gave me a shot as I needed to carve into the Tyranids to keep them away from the Relic. I moved the Guard blob up, to get line of sight to the Relic to stop the nids from having it, and dropped my Pod down with the Rune Priest in it. The squad in there was utterly crap this game, wounding a Zoanthrope once with Bolters, whilst the Long Fangs killed all but one of the Flying Warriors and the Manticore killed 2 Hormagaunts (yay!). My Guard blob pulled my ass out of the fire (again) though, as it finished off the Zoanthrope for First Blood.
The fight kind of devolved into 2 parts, left flank and right flank. If I lost either of them then I'd lose the Relic and the game wound be over. On the left I had the Long Fangs, a pack of Grey Hunters, a Lone Wolf and the blob (mostly). On the right I had some Grey Hunters and a Lone Wolf. Facing my left were the Hive Guard, Warrior like things, a Zoanthrope, the Tyrant, 30 Termagants, etc. And on the right the Hormagants, 3 Warriors and a Zoan.
I may have made a tiny mistake on the right however, I assumed that the Hormagaunts were Initiative 4 and squishy, although I got the latter part right, my Grey Hunters were butchered to 1 guy remaining even with the Wolf Standard, failing 6 of 10 required saves. The Hormagaunts then chased him down locking them in, which was the saving grace. However, this left me with a problem. My own Guard blob was locked down under many bodies, and needed help to avoid getting torn apart (the Tyrant and Termagants charged them). However, I also couldn't allow the Hormagaunts to get in as that would spell doom for the blob. I had only 1 Grey Hunter pack left to do this with, and I needed the Long Fangs to take out Zoans, Hive Guard, etc.
I took a bit of a risk here, and set up for the Grey Hunters charging into the big combat, whilst the remaining Lone Wolf on the right went for a Zoanthrope ready to catapalt into Linebreaker territory, which was successful. I then planned to use the Manticore to smash the Hormagaunts and Warriors, who had failed their blob charge the turn earlier.
The gamble paid off, the Manticore went crazy even without Prescience, smashing all but 1 of the Hormagaunts and all of the Warriors. The Grey Hunters took out a load of Termagaunts, before the Long Fangs piled in and elminated the last of his Troops choices. However, in the process the Rune Priest had been slain, meaning that it was now 2-1. To win the game I needed to hold the line. It was not helpful that the game lasted until turn 7, and although my Guard blob heroically died tying up the Tyrant, even reducing it to 2 wounds, long enough for the Long Fangs to continue the tying up, a Biovore came scuttling towards my lines.
You know that scene in, 'The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers' where Legolas is trying to bring down the Uruk-Hai Berzerker about to blow up the Deeping Wall, it was a bit like that, only with a Drop Pod shooting, and although it tried it's hardest, it could only reduce it to its last wound. It didn't matter though as it was about 2" out at the end of the game, meaning that the Wolves had clinched victory 2-1.
What these games really show however, is how vital my Guard contingency is in this list. In the first game it was responsible, through their teaming up with the Lone Wolves, for almost everything dying, bar the vehicles. In the second game, both the Guard blob and the Manticore pulled my ass out of the fire, with the Guard blob also holding firm until the last to take the game.
This is why, in shrinking the list down to 1,650, I am keeping my entire Imperial Guard contingency. Alright, my blob isn't the best in the world, maybe it isn't 50 man or bristling with Plasma Guns, but it does the trick for me for less than 300pts. Bargain. But as promised, here's the 1,650pt list that I will be taking to a tournament on the 6th May.
HQ:
Rune Priest: 170
-Runic Armour
-Master of Runes
Rune Priest: 120
-Runic Armour
-Jaws
-Living Lightning
Elites:
Lone Wolf: 85
-Thunder Hammer
-Storm Shield
-Terminator Armour
Lone Wolf: 85
-Thunder Hammer
-Storm Shield
-Terminator Armour
Troops:
9 Grey Hunters: 185
-Drop Pod
-Meltagun
-Wolf Standard
7 Grey Hunters: 120
-Meltagun
-Wolf Standard
7 Grey Hunters: 120
-Meltagun
-Wolf Standard
Heavy Support:
6 Long Fangs: 140
-5 Missile Launchers
6 Long Fangs: 140
-5 Missile Launchers
Allied HQ:
Primaris Psyker: 70
Allied Troops:
Infantry Platoon: 255
Platoon Command: 35
-Vox Caster
Infantry Squad: 60
-Flamer
-Vox Caster
Infantry Squad: 55
-Flamer
Infantry Squad: 55
-Grenade Launcher
Infantry Squad: 50
Allied Heavy Support:
Manticore: 160
Total: 1,650
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